Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy , livre ebook

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The Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy
Copyright 2022-Text Todd Hampson, Artwork Todd Hampson
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97408
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-8387-7 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-7369-8388-4 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022931569
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DEDICATION

Dedicated to Andrew George. Paratrooper, combat veteran, hilarious storyteller, stepbrother, and built-in best friend since first grade. I m thankful our lives collided early in life. From Rambo missions and dirt bikes to rope swing fails and DC subway trips. My childhood would not have been the same without you, and my adult life has been so much richer with you.
Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of writing books about your Word. I get salvation-and all of this too?
To my wife, Tracey, and our grown children. No accomplishment will ever surpass the privilege of loving you and walking through this life together.
To the many scholars cited in this book who have done the careful work of cataloging the compelling details of Bible prophecy.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction: Our Fixed Point of Reference

Chapter 1 Why Now?
Chapter 2 Jam-Packed Genesis
Chapter 3 The Rest of the Torah
Chapter 4 Fulfilled Prophecy Via Messy History
Chapter 5 Waxing Prophetically Poetic
Chapter 6 The Incredible Prophecies of Isaiah
Chapter 7 Prophecies from the Weeping Prophet
Chapter 8 Eclectic and Enigmatic Ezekiel
Chapter 9 The Panoramic Prophecies of Daniel
Chapter 10 The Not-So-Minor Prophets
Chapter 11 Prophecy Meets History (The Gospels and Acts)
Chapter 12 Paul s Prophetically Pivotal Epistles
Chapter 13 The Eschatological Outlook of the Other Epistles
Chapter 14 Wildly Relevant Revelation
Chapter 15 The 800-Pound End-Times Gorilla in the Room
Notes
Other Great Reading by Todd Hampson
INTRODUCTION
Our Fixed Point of Reference
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
-HEBREWS 6:19
I f you ve seen the blockbuster 1995 film Apollo 13 , you may recall that 56 hours into the United States third mission to the moon, disaster struck. 1 During a routine cryo stir to check the oxygen levels, an explosion occurred in the tank, causing the loss of one oxygen tank and major damage to the other. The real-life scenario of that event was the genesis of the famous line, Okay, Houston, we ve had a problem here. At that moment, the mission of Apollo 13 changed from landing on the moon to getting back home alive. Against all odds and with the incredible coordinated efforts of the crew and the ground team, everyone aboard Apollo 13 made it home alive.
In the film, there is an extremely tense scene where, after the damaged spacecraft had to abort the mission and slingshot around the moon, a four-minute burn of fuel was needed to shorten the trip by 12 hours. This was necessary because the ship was literally running out of oxygen. By the end of the fuel burn, the module had to be angled correctly in order to make a successful reentry back into the earth s atmosphere. The angle of the entry had to be just right. Too much angle, and the spacecraft would have skipped off the atmosphere into outer space-never to be seen again. Too little angle, and the ship could burst into flames and explode upon entry. To make matters worse, the crew had to conserve electricity, so they were not able to use their computer system. As they initiated the four-minute burn to properly angle the ship, they would have to do so with no assistance from the computer.

In the movie, astronaut Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) looked through a small window that gave him a view of the earth. He surmised that all he needed was a single fixed position in space in order to properly steer the ship during the burst without any assistance from the computer system. If he could keep the earth in the center of the window while they executed the critical four-minute fuel burn, the plan would have a good chance of working. He communicated this to ground command, and they gave him the green light. Lovell then used the visual anchor of the earth in the window to perform the short fuel burn needed to position the ship correctly. The earth had to be centered in the window by the end of the four minutes. If it wasn t, that would mean they were angled incorrectly. This was literally a life-or-death maneuver as they increased the speed of the damaged ship. Fortunately, in their case-after fighting for steering control as the fuel burn began-Lovell was able to get the earth centered in the small window just before the burn ended. Until then, the astronauts, ground team, and millions of people who were following their progress endured an extremely tense few moments with everything on the line.
Apart from God, this world is like a damaged ship floating through time on a collision course with destruction. Fortunately for us, God has given us a fixed point of reference to which we can tether our gaze so that we are not flying blind: his prophetic Word. Prophecy is twofold-it involves forthtelling as well as foretelling . It is forthtelling in the sense that it instructs its readers how to live rightly with God and man. It is also foretelling, or predictive in nature. In short, the Bible tells us the future, and its declarations have a 100 percent track record of being correct, as confirmed by the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies contained in Scripture. It is this second aspect of prophecy-the foretelling passages (both fulfilled and yet future)-that we will study in this book.

In 2 Peter 1:19, we read, We have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place. God s Word is our source of stability in the darkness-and it is inherently prophetic and reliable. These two characteristics go hand in hand.
At its core, the Bible is a prophetic message and it is completely reliable . Fulfilled prophecy proves Scripture s reliability. The concepts are two sides of the same coin. Fulfilled prophecy is a strong apologetic (defense) that the Bible is from God. The Bible is the only religious book that claims to be the very Word of God and backs up this claim with hundreds of specific fulfilled prophecies. Prophecies are promises. A promise is only as good as the character and ability of the promise-maker.

We read this bold statement from God in Isaiah 46:9-10: Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. In a similar manner, Jesus-after telling the disciples some of what was to come-said these words in John 16:4: I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.
I ll readily admit that as Christians, we believe some out-of-this-world stuff! We believe in creation and miracles, a global flood and supernatural plagues, the incarnation (where God became man), the resurrection of the dead, the future rapture of the church, a time when God judges the entire world, and the creation of a new heaven and earth. We have not personally witnessed any of those things. So why would we believe they are true?
Experts say that about 26 to 33 percent of the Bible was prophecy at the time it was written. About 75 to 80 percent has already been fulfilled. That is a big down payment that ensures the remaining 20 to 25 percent will in like manner be fulfilled. The single greatest reason we can trust the seemingly insane claims about supernatural events of the past and the miraculous events related to our future is the clear and compelling apologetic of fulfilled Bible prophecy.
Even more compelling is the fact that the 26 to 33 percent of the Bible that is propheti